Shiny pamphlets, smiley faces, but little on lawyers

Published on Monday 30 April 2007 00:25

WITH only a few days left to go, I am in what can only be described as a quandary. I just cannot make up my mind how to vote this Thursday.

I am trying to make an informed decision, looking beyond the phoney war over independence to consider the merits of the parties' policies on crucial issues such as justice. I began to wonder how many of their promises would stand up to even this humble hack and law student's level of scrutiny? And, while I think it's safe to say the candidates standing on a Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers ticket won't be able to count on many votes from solicitors, are any parties attractive to those with an interest in law?

Last night I had a browse through the half-ton or so of leaflets that fell through the letterbox yesterday, and discovered some rather interesting themes are emerging in the war to win votes in Edinburgh Central.

Some of the promises sound very familiar. In her letter, Labour's Sarah Boyack tells me about all the wonderful things her party has been doing to tackle antisocial behaviour, such as introducing ASBOs and dispersal orders. I'm not sure they're the best advert for Labour's justice achievements.

But the Lib Dems' Siobhan Mathers is also "for safer streets" and promises 1,000 extra community police officers with "tough community sentences that make criminals work to repay their crimes". And the SNP's Shirley-Anne Somerville promises they will "publish" plans for 1,000 additional community police officers to tackle antisocial behaviour.

None of them mentions that crime has actually been falling in Scotland in recent years. No-one suggests that we should call a halt to plans to build more privately run jails to incarcerate even more prisoners.

Maybe when a few thousand more inmates are locked up, politicians might see some value in giving prisoners the vote. Perhaps then someone will see the merit in standing on a "let's stop wasting money on extra prisons when ordinary people can't access legal advice" ticket?

Disappointingly, even Solidarity leader Tommy Sheridan, who urges me to vote for his comrade Pat Smith, doesn't give his view on promoting access to justice. For example, should those taking the wage of an skilled worker get legal aid to fight defamation actions?

In his glossy leaflet, Tommy doesn't say, but he does want to "rid Scotland of the scourge of airguns" and to introduce a bill to "end the vicious anti-trade union laws of Thatcher and New Labour".

Meanwhile, Tommy's erstwhile pals in the SSP have nothing to say on the subject either, but they do want an 8 minimum wage, which I suppose might be attractive to trainees working at some of the more parsimonious law firms.

The SSP cheekily refer to the main party leaders as "Alex Kipper", "Annabel Tweedie", "Nicol Wotsisname" and "Jack McConnem". But then poor old Jack can't even rely on his own party to get his name right - Dianne Abbott MP had to be ticked off by Andrew Neil the other night after twice referring to our First Minister as "Jock" McConnell.

At the other end of the political spectrum, the Tories are pushing their new focus on drugs and crime, without being at all specific on how they would go about it. Most radical of all are UKIP, who want to scrap MSPs altogether and have Scotland represented by 59 MPs at Westminster.

Any lawyers who are disgruntled by the Executive's handling of regulatory changes to the profession might be tempted by that one. But, then again, devolved government does generate quite a lot more business.

After all that, my vote is still floating. Perhaps I'd better trawl through the parties' pledges on the NHS?